It was time to leave. I had invested over ten years in this country, but it just wasn't the right place for me anymore. Was I burned out? Had I stopped loving the people I was ministering to? Was I unhappy with the work? No. I simply no longer belonged there.

God gives us grace to be where He calls us to be and to do what He calls us to do. When He calls us to a new assignment, sometimes He removes the grace that was required for the old assignment. Perhaps we begin to sense itchy feet. The negatives seem to outweigh the positives. What was bearable becomes unbearable.

The arc of any cross-cultural ministry includes the honeymoon phase of loving where we are and what we’re doing, followed by the crash of being frustrated with—or even hating—everything, and finally the stability of moving in the flow of that place. And even within that flow, everyone has bad days, bad seasons. So, we have to be careful not to assume our assignment has changed just because we’re fed up with the bureaucracy or the culture or an apparent lack of fruit. That isn’t grace removed; that is an invitation to press into God and persevere.

When God removes the grace for a situation, there is a clear sense of “time to go.” It’s beyond an emotional response; it’s a soul understanding. He may prepare us (as He prepared me) by nudging us toward a different ministry, stirring a new passion in us, or opening our eyes to a need we hadn’t perceived or that hadn’t existed before.

At that point, we can cling to the old assignment, soldiering on in our own determination, or we can seek to discern what new path God is pointing us toward. It may be a change of direction—and there is no shame in switching direction if God is initiating that switch. The key, when the grace has gone, is to let go of the old and follow God into the new place of grace He is calling us to.